Have you ever been driving on a highway and suddenly observed all cars, including yours, pulling to the roadside to allow an emergency or police car to pass? This real-life analogy here is to prevent traffic congestion and prioritize an emergency or law enforcement vehicle to pass before other ordinary cars. This situation usually happens when the police chase bad guys on the road or when an emergency service like the fire department needs to reach a specific location as soon as possible. The illustration here relates to Traffic Priority in networking.
What is Traffic Priority?
Traffic priority refers to a treatment given to particular traffic to go first, for others to queue to prevent congestion. In audio and video communication, this mechanism can be incorporated to adjust a network's traffic to be prioritized to favor audio/video packets over other purposes like downloading applications.
How does Traffic Priority Work?
Traffic Priority uses network categories and types to assign importance to different data. It uses Traffic Shaping, queue handling, and Quality of Service (QoS) for its operations. A typical Traffic Priority mechanism is as follows.
- Division of data: It uses port numbers and protocol markings in network devices like routers and switches to categorize data packets that transmit through the network. The data categorization helps to allocate, for example, higher priority to VoIP packets than any non-VoIP packet.
- Network resources assignment: It assigns network resources like higher bandwidth values to high-priority data packets.
Benefits of Traffic Priority in VoIP Applications
- Improvement in call quality: Assigning a higher priority to VoIP packets helps to enhance the quality of calls.
- Reduction in latency and jitter: Adding Traffic Priority support in VoIP applications helps to minimize latency and jitter to provide a higher call quality.
- Minimized packet loss: Traffic Priority helps ensure seamless voice and video data transmission by reducing packet losses.
- Reduced network traffic: It minimizes traffic in the network to prevent congestion.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Traffic Priority and Traffic Shaping?
Traffic priority uses different levels of network traffic categories to assign different bandwidths to packets. At the same time, Traffic Shaping manages network traffic congestion by delaying some data packets.
How do network applications with low-priority bandwidth assignments benefit from Traffic priority?
If you, for example, prioritize VoIP calls over downloading apps and browsing-related things in the network, an exemplary implementation of Traffic Priority ensures that users experience smooth app downloads and browsing as well.
Is Traffic Priority excellent in ensuring high-quality calls in real-time communication?
No, several other network problems, like traffic congestion, can affect the quality of audio/video calls.